Pete Wishart: SNP must ‘face reality’ that Scotland is leaving EU

The SNP must “face up to the reality” that Scotland is going to leave the EU as part of the UK, one of the party’s most senior MPs has said as he called for a change of strategy on Brexit.

Pete Wishart, the SNP’s constitution spokesman at Westminster and its longest serving MP, warned that the party risked alienating voters by “chastising” people who supported Leave in 2016.

“Scotland will find itself out of the EU as part of the UK in a year’s time and we have to face up to that reality”

Pete Wishart

In an apparent criticism of Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership since the referendum, he said the party should avoid “extolling the virtues of an EU they [SNP voters] feel alienated from”.

Opinion polls have suggested that around a third of SNP supporters backed Brexit, as many believe Scotland should reclaim its sovereignty from both the EU and the UK.

Mr Wishart also revealed that he was considering putting himself forward as a candidate for the party’s Depute leadership following the resignation of Angus Robertson.

Writing in the National newspaper, he said the SNP “urgently” need to begin building a new case for Scottish independence which was not based purely on rejoining the EU.

Gradual integration

Rather than trying to gain immediate re-entry into the bloc, Mr Wishart suggested a “graduated approach” to European integration would win back the party’s more Eurosceptic voters.

“On the EU there is no point chastising leave SNP voters by simply extolling the virtues of an EU they feel alienated from,” he wrote. “We have to construct a way forward that can enlist them and with which they can feel comfortable with.

“Unless something dramatic happens within the next few months Scotland will find itself out of the EU as part of the UK in a year’s time and we have to face up to that reality.”

He argued that an independent Scotland should only rejoin the EU if there was a majority for the move in the Scottish Parliament.

Mr Wishart has previously said that Ms Sturgeon should delay her plans to hold another Scottish independence referendum until after the next Holyrood election in 2021.

Scottish Conservative MP Ross Thomson said Mr Wishart’s comments “can only be read as a sharp criticism of Nicola Sturgeon’s poor leadership since the EU referendum”.

He added: “It’s Nicola Sturgeon who has led the way in chastising Leave voters over the last 18 months.

“And it’s Nicola Sturgeon who has told anyone who voted Leave in Scotland, including many former SNP voters, that they were wrong.

“If the SNP wants to regain trust, it should make clear that it respects both referendum results we’ve on in the last few years: to stay in the UK and leave the EU.”

The SNP declined to comment on Mr Wishart’s remarks.

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